


Five Times the Phoenixes Had Ethan's Back, and One Time He Had Theirs

by JustAnotherWriter (N1ghtshade)



Category: Reprisal (2019)
Genre: Angst, Found Family, Gen, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:35:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21794647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/N1ghtshade/pseuds/JustAnotherWriter
Summary: The Three River Phoenixes are brothers, no matter what. And brothers don't let anyone mess with their siblings...
Relationships: Ethan Hart & Johnson (Reprisal 2019), Ethan Hart & Matty (Reprisal 2019), Matty (Reprisal 2019) & Johnson (Reprisal 2019)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 33





	Five Times the Phoenixes Had Ethan's Back, and One Time He Had Theirs

**Author's Note:**

  * For [just_another_outcast](https://archiveofourown.org/users/just_another_outcast/gifts).



> Well, the Three River Phoenixes hooked me with their found family dynamic, which is my weakness...
> 
> just_another_outcast, you can call this a late birthday gift or an early Christmas one... ;)

It’s just another sleazy bar. Like a lot of the places they’ve spent time while on the River. There’s a certain generic feel to the places at this point, cigarette butts on the floor, crunching underfoot, the smell of spilled beer and, more often than not, spilled blood. Unidentifiable stains on the seats, bar stools are generally the safest and cleanest bet. 

Ethan’s halfway through the first bottle of the night, Matty’s on his third, and Johnson is lighting up for the fifth time since they stopped. Ethan’s gotten used to the smell of smoke at this point. It used to remind him too much of Mom, of the way she sat in her chair every night and smoked her way through a pack with barely a pause. Now, that memory has been replaced by the thoughts of his new friends. 

_ Not exactly the healthiest habits. But I guess it’s what we do to forget. _ To forget that their most unhealthy habit is carrying guns and pissing off other people with guns. A lot more guns. Ethan’s pretty sure that will kill all three of them long before the smoke or alcohol have a chance. 

He leans on the scarred, sticky bar, holding the cold glass bottle against his forehead. He’s had a headache all day, and the pounding music in here isn’t making it any better. The constant stress of wondering when the Brawlers are going to catch up to them and exact a very painful revenge is permanently stressing him out. But unlike Matty and Johnson, none of his habits seem to help very much with forgetting. 

Maybe if he gets up and walks around a little, he’ll feel better. He just needs some fresh air. 

He sets his bottle down on the bar and nudges Matty’s shoulder. “I need a minute to breathe,” he says, and Matty nods. It’s an unspoken agreement between them all that Ethan is going to tell them, honestly, where he’s going if he leaves the group. He doesn’t blame them for asking him every time until he got the idea. He lied to them too much for them to trust him right now. And if he’s being honest, he likes that they worry. It’s nice to have someone watching his back, even if it’s because he wasn’t very trustworthy to begin with. 

_ They called me their brother. _ But that was before they found out he was working with the people who killed thier friends and tried to destroy their world. Ethan’s surprised they didn’t turn him in or kill him themselves.  _ Why would they sacrifice everything for me? _

He steps outside and starts taking slow, deep breaths to calm himself. He blinks away the memory of teaching a blood-spattered Meredith the same thing.  _ I bet she hates me now.  _ He wonders if she’s the reason the Brawlers knew he was Doris’s inside man. He almost hopes so, it’s better than the alternative. Because he’s afraid that even being Burt’s daughter won’t save her from the anger of those men if they learn that she knew the truth and was covering for Ethan. 

_ Did I get her killed? _ The thought churns in his stomach, and he swallows hard.  _ Breathe in. Slow and steady.  _

A hand slams down on his shoulder, and he jumps, losing his balance where he’s leaning against the corner of the wall. It’s not Matty, or Johnson. Both of them have a lighter touch, even when they’re greeting him or showing approval. 

For a split second he’s terrified it’s one of the Brawlers, tracked them to this place even though they’ve repainted “Betty” and “Uncle Lug” is parked half a mile away in a stand of trees. None of them are willing to part with the only things they still own yet, even though the car and trailer make them visible. They don’t pull the trailer often anymore, but they do take it with them whenever they have to move on to a new area. He was hoping they were far enough west to avoid any influence of the Bang-a-Rangs, thanks to Whit he knows the western expansion of the enterprise hasn’t been vast. 

He looks up in startled shock, ready to get in one good hit and try to make a break for it, before he realizes this guy isn’t wearing a Brawlers jacket, or even a blue denim shirt. He’s got a black leather vest open over a white t-shirt stained with beer and grease, and the emblem on his vest is unfamiliar, a half-open rosebud with the thorns dripping blood. 

“Now what’s a pretty thing like you doing hiding over here in the shadows?” The man asks. “You wanna make a buck, stand closer to the door.” 

Ethan flinches. It’s not the first time he’s been mistaken for a male prostitute, but it’s a disturbing experience every time. He and the others don’t wear their jackets much anymore, just in case someone comes asking and hears about a sighting of the 3RPs, so it’s not immediately obvious that he’s part of any group. And leaning against the wall out here, like this…

“Sorry, you got the wrong idea,” Ethan says, pushing the man’s heavy hand away from where it’s traveling over his hip. 

“What, are you taken? You belong to those two back in there?” The man jerks a thumb over his shoulder. 

“What? No, no, it’s not like that.” Ethan says. He can’t bring himself to let this guy assume that, even if it would have protected him.  _ Matty and Johnson would never use me like that. They’re my brothers. _

“Oh, well, then, I guess they won’t mind if I have a taste?” The man leans in, his breath reeking of alcohol and cigars.

“Actually, they probably would.” He really hopes his voice isn’t shaking, and he clenches his hand into a fist. “They’re not really fond of people who mess with their brothers.”

“You adopted or something?” The guy asks. “Cause you sure as hell don’t look like siblings to me.”

Ethan takes a shaky breath, feeling his fingernails digging into his palm from how tight his fist is. He’ll hit this guy if he has to, but the last two times he hit a guy, he killed him.  _ And that blood on my hands is a hard thing to live with. Makes it hard to sleep at night. _ In the heat of the moment, he’d felt like he was doing the right thing, and there wasn’t exactly a lot of time to think about what he’d done after Detroit, he was too busy trying to survive the Brawlers’ world and figure out why Doris sent him there. 

He steps to the side, making himself a clear path to the door, and in the moment it takes the inebriated man to adjust to the change in position, Ethan slips back inside the bar, rejoining Matty and Johnson. 

“All good?” Matty asks around the neck of his bottle. 

Ethan just nods. He takes a few more sips from his own beer, but the taste seems more bitter than he remembers, and the smoke from Johnson’s cigarette is burning his eyes. He blinks and watches the room seem to waver and shift and right itself, as disorienting an experience as the one and only time he tried Meredith’s ‘scratch’. He feels like he’s drugged, even though the only thing is his system is half a bottle of beer.

On top of the alcohol and stress, the encounter with the creep out front is making him feel genuinely sick. He climbs down off the stool, excusing himself. “Just gotta take a piss. I’ll be back.” Matty nods, and Johnson raises one finger off his cigarette for a moment in acknowledgement. 

He walks to the back of the bar, leaning heavily on tables and the edges of booths to quiet the swaying in his head, hoping everything in his stomach stays there until he makes it to a toilet. He passes a couple making out in a dark corner, and a group of drunk men crowded around a battered television, watching the outcome of a prize fight and making bets. He wonders if any of them are the guy from before, he can see several bleeding roses on jackets and vests. They must be in this gang’s turf.

He stumbles through the bathroom door and into one of the grimy stalls, barely making it to lean over the toilet before he’s retching. When it’s over, he stands up slowly, wiping his mouth on his sleeve and starting to plug his nose and take bdeep breaths again. The air in here smells rancid and sour, and he turns away. He needs to wash his hands and face and get a grip before he goes back out there.

He’s leaning over the sink (the ‘pushy kind’ Meredith would call it) and trying to get enough water in his hands to wash any evidence of what happened off his face. He can feel vomit in the corners of his lips and tear streaks down his cheeks, neither of which he wants Matty and Johnson to see. The water comes out in a slow trickle that stops almost instantly when he takes his hand off the faucet, and he’s beginning to understand Meredith’s frustration.

_ Don’t think about her, or you’ll spiral again. _ He looks up into the mirror, and it gives him a split second of warning to turn around and face the man who’s come up behind him. 

“Well, well, well. If it isn’t you again, pretty.” The voice is even more slurred than before. 

“Just fuck off.” Ethan shoves the guy’s shoulder, trying to move past him to the door. He doesn’t like the idea of getting into a scuffle in here. The bathroom is too far away from the bar where the other Phoenixes are for a fight to be easily heard over the loud music and raucous yelling of the men watching the prize fight.

“Oh, I’d rather fuck  _ you. _ ” The next second, there are hands on Ethan’s shoulders, and he turns to see two more men who’ve come up behind him, holding his arms in an iron grip. One hand has a tattoo of the same bleeding rose on the middle finger.

Ethan spent the better part of his teenage years on the Detroit streets. He can handle himself fairly well in a fight, and he has no illusions about how often that’s saved him from a few grisly fates. But taking on one guy in an alley is a whole lot different than three in a cramped bathroom. There’s nowhere to run, and nothing to grab and use as a weapon. He gets one arm free for a few moments, and gets in a couple solid punches before he’s thrown against the row of sinks with such force his head hits the grimy mirror and cracks it. 

The first man, his nose dripping blood from one of Ethan’s punches, grabs him and rolls him over so that the edge of a sink is digging into his stomach. Ethan thrashes and struggles and tries to shove against the counter to push himself up and off of it, but the man’s leaning against his back and he can’t move. 

“Let me go!”

“Now, see, I’m going to enjoy this whether you struggle or not, pretty. It’s up to you how much it’s going to hurt.” The man unbuckles his belt, grabs both Ethan’s wrists in one meaty hand, pulling them behind him, and wraps the leather strap around them, tugging it painfully tight. “And now you’ve pissed off my friends, throwing punches around like that. So I think they’re going to want a little compensation.”

Ethan gasps and tries to scream, but he’s shoved harder against the counter, so brutally that it digs into his stomach and forces the air out of his lungs. He can feel hands fumbling his suspenders off, tugging at his pants, and he bites his lip to keep from sobbing. He won’t give them the satisfaction. 

Then the door flies open with a thud. Ethan hangs his head, it’s bad enough to be taken in a bar bathroom like this. The fact that someone else is about to see his absolute humiliation is almost unbearable.

“Take your hands off him.” Johnson’s voice is cold but terrifying. People listen when he threatens, and these guys are no exception. The hands stop pulling Ethan’s clothes away, and he begins twisting and pulling, trying to shake himself free. 

Ethan throws his head back, catching the man behind him, who still has one hand on his ass, on the chin. The man staggers backward, and Ethan pulls himself away, struggling to get his hands free. 

There’s a crack of fist on bone, and Ethan watches as Matty and Johnson take on the three men with efficient fury. Johnson tosses one across the sinks with a force that shatters the cracked mirror completely, and Matty slams a stall door into one’s face, dropping him to the floor in a second. 

He grabs the first man in a chokehold just as Ethan gets his hands free. “You wanna hit him, or should we?” Matty asks. 

“I’ll do it.” Ethan swings a fist, and he hears the crack of bone from both the man’s jaw and one of his fingers. But he doesn’t really care that it hurts. 

“You know, after you ran off the last time, we get a little worried when you’re gone so long takin’ a piss.” Matty says.

Ethan lets out a weak laugh. It’s that or cry, at this point. “Guess that’s a good thing for me.” He pulls his pants up, buckling his suspenders with shaking fingers.

“I think we should be moving on,” Johnson says, staring down at the bleeding rose embroidery on the jacket of one of the men sprawled on the floor. “I don’t think we’re welcome on these ones’ turf anymore.”

Ethan just nods. He doesn’t care if they can’t get a motel and sleep in the trailer tonight. He stumbles again, and Matty pulls one of his arms over his own shoulders. “Let’s get out of here.” He’s with his brothers, and that’s all that really matters. 

  
  



End file.
